FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The judge overseeing jury selection for a man who killed 17 people at a Florida high school said the trial will start anew Monday, after prosecutors and defense attorneys argued that she was wrong when she didn’t question 11 potential jurors who said they wouldn’t follow the law before she fired them.
In granting Nikolas Cruz’s prosecutors’ motion over strong objections from his attorneys, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer struck down two weeks of work by attorneys for the prosecution and defense, forcing them to begin the entire process all over again on monday.
As a result, nearly 250 potential jurors who had said they could stand for a four-month trial will not be called up next month for further questioning about whether they could fairly try Cruz, who pleaded guilty in October to murdering 14 students and three staff members. members of Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018. More than 1,200 candidates were selected.
The 12-member jury to be selected after a two-month selection process will decide whether Cruz, 23, is sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. The restart will delay the opening statements from June 14 to June 21. They had already been delayed since May 31.
Prosecutor Carolyn McCann made her argument after the 11 jurors Scherer improperly fired two weeks ago were not told to return to court for further questioning Monday as planned due to a miscommunication.
Scherer said they would be brought in next week, but McCann argued that more time would be lost if potential jurors had to be eliminated anyway. She said the prosecution has as much right to cross-examine prospective jurors and an unblemished final panel as the defense.
“Neither side has been able to speak with these jurors. In a capital case, cross-examination by jurors is important. It is of the utmost importance,” McCann said. “This is not a harmless bug.”
Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s lead public defender, said Scherer would have to wait until next week to see if all 11 jurors returned and could be questioned.
“We think he’s making more mistakes” in ruling out potential jurors now, McNeill said.
Scherer sided with the prosecution but gave the defense until Wednesday to conduct an investigation in an effort to change his mind.
Scherer told both sides that while they believe he made a serious mistake by not questioning all 11 jurors, he disagrees. She said that she was just giving in to her opinion to move the case forward.
Having to start over has been a possibility since April 5 after Scherer’s questioning of a group of 60 potential jurors, the fifth of 21 panels scheduled before Monday.
With all other groups, Scherer only asked if potential jurors had any difficulties that would make it impossible for them to serve from June to September. With the fifth group, however, he also asked if any would not follow the law if he were elected. Eleven hands went up.
Scherer fired them without further question, drawing an objection from Cruz’s attorneys. They wanted to make sure they weren’t just trying to avoid jury duty. Florida jury candidates are always questioned before they are fired.
Scherer tried to get the jurors to return, but all but one had left the courthouse. She said the Broward County Sheriff’s Office would serve them with the citations, but that was not done for unexplained reasons. Even if they all came back, they still might have been disqualified because they hadn’t been given Scherer’s order to other potential jurors not to discuss or read about the case.
“I will never make that mistake again,” Scherer told attorneys the next day.
David Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor, said Monday that prosecutors are right, up to a point. They, the victims and their families “all have the right to a fair trial, but that right cannot take precedence over the rights of a criminal defendant.”
“What the state is trying to prevent, more than anything, is a sanction phase that has been tainted at this early stage,” he said. If Cruz receives a death sentence, that could result in him being dismissed on appeal, she said. “From his perspective, the judge can wipe the slate clean and start over.”
But the defense, he said, will argue on appeal that by restarting on his objection, Cruz is subject to double jeopardy and cannot be sentenced to death.
Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said the prosecution is correct that a restart is necessary. But, he said, the dispute is “another error by a judge that is over his head.” This is Scherer’s first capital case.
Ultimately selected jurors will decide whether aggravating factors — the multiple deaths, Cruz’s planning, and his cruelty — outweigh mitigating factors such as the defendant’s lifelong mental and emotional problems, possible sexual abuse, and the death of his parents. .
For Cruz to receive the death penalty, the jury must vote unanimously on that option. If one or more votes against, he will be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Given Cruz’s notoriety and the hatred he has for many in the community, finding jurors who can be fair promises to be an excruciatingly long process. Jurors who can serve four months complete questionnaires about their background and their beliefs about the death penalty. Answers are given to both sides, and then prospects are brought back in several weeks for more questions.
Both sides can then try to “rehabilitate” jurors they think might be favorable to their side. For example, jurors who are morally opposed to the death penalty would normally be dismissed as unfair to the prosecution, but the defense can ask whether they would vote for the death penalty if required by law. If the judge is convinced that they could do it, the jury could take a seat.
Reference-abcnews.go.com